News – Boost for Irish arts

Irish arts organisations have received a boost with news that the Arts Council of Ireland will see an 18.5% increase in annual funding from the Government next year, to reach a total of e72.3m.
The increase was well above the Irish Governments spending commitments in other areas which averaged 6.6%. Responding to the announcement, Mary Cloake, Director of the Arts Council, said, The Arts Council has prepared a new strategy for supporting the arts, which will be published in December. The strategy is ambitious, and sets a target of e100m for arts funding by 2008. Todays news is a very significant step forward towards this goal. The announcement means that funding to the Arts Council has tripled since 1997.